Country rankings can be useful. When it comes to environmental
performance, they can be walls of fame and walls of shame. Who
is doing well, and who is not? Can countries learn from each other
by observing "best practice"? This is particularly important when
it comes to climate change. The range of per-capita emissions
of carbon dioxide (CO2) is astoundingly wide even
among OECD countries. Reliance on fossil fuel for energy generation
plays a big role, and of course oil-and-gas-producing countries
have an even bigger footprint.

The diagram below shows the ranking of countries by the size of
emissions per person, expressed in metric tonnes of carbon dioxide
equivalent emissions per person in the reference year 2011 (the latest
year for which comprehensive cross-country data is available).
Only countries with emissiona in excess of 100 Gigatonnes are shown.
Canada's position, at 14.1 tonnes per person, is lamentable, and is
only slightly better (17% less) than the U.S. position.

Australia's position is even worse than Canada's. Abandoning its carbon tax in 2014, Australia has been
backtracking. Imagine Canada dropping its carbon footprint to that
of the United Kingdom: from 14 down to 7 tonnes per capita, or just
about half. How can we get there?

It is also rather interesting to look at the changes in per-capita
emissions over the last decade. The next chart shows how much changed
between 2001 and 2011. Some countries have clearly increased their
emission footprint, notably oil producers Kazakhstan and Saudi Arabia,
but also China and Korea. Because of China's size, this is the most
important increase. Among the countries that have reduced their
footprint are several European Union countries: France, italy, Germany,
Spain, Czechia, and the United Kingdom. Notably, both the United
States and Canada had per-capita reductions of nearly 3 tonnes
per person per year. The largest change occured in the United
Arab Emirates, whose per-capita emissions dropped by 11 metric
tonnes per capita per year. Unfortunately, the United Arab Emirates
remain the largest per-capita emitter with over 20 metric tonnes.
The world remains a long way from decarbonization, and oil-producing
countries are particularly challenged.